Everyone has their own definition for happiness. What is yours?
If you say it is emotion which you feel when you’re happy, then emotions are fleeting. They’re not permanent. You could be happy when you wake up and a small dysregulation in your day can turn your happiness into sadness, anger or disappointment. You can be happy and a small dent on your million-dollar car can make you angry, a death in the family can make you sad or depressed, a distressing headline on your morning paper can have significant influence on your day. So, can you actually call that happiness?
Happiness is not an emotion. Emotions are just chemicals in our head messing with us. Dopamine is cheap, you can obtain it by mindlessly scrolling through your phone or talking to someone you love or doing something you enjoy and so on but contrary to that not being able to do what you want can give you negative emotions. So, can you call such cheap dopamine as happiness?
Happiness is peace. Doesn’t matter if your life is on fire or if it's on a run if you can still hold on to your peace then you can call yourself a happy person. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t feel anything or cry at a funeral, you wouldn’t be a human without that. But not being a slave to the emotions and instead know what to feel, choose what to feel, observe what you feel. Be in control of what chemicals your brain releases. That peace of knowing you're in control of yourself, that is the most basic and most significant form of happiness.
All the rest is just temporary, people don’t stay forever, wealth doesn’t, materials don’t. All you have is yourself so how good are you treating yourself and are you in control of yourself? Don’t think happiness is something you need to chase, it's always within you, chase yourself.
Consider life as journey to know yourself and gaining control of yourself part by part as you advance through the different stages of life. If you try to find happiness in something external and keep on chasing that you’ll never find happiness because human wants never end.
A quote by Rumi (ra), he says “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” Your whole world lies within you but how long is it going to take for you to discover that? Strive towards being at peace with yourself. Once you're at peace with yourself the rest will happen when it’s destined to happen. Happiness is being at peace with yourself, being in control of yourself. The rest are just chemicals.
Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed the read.
